


Different Languages

by linndechir



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-26 09:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: A rival's goons jump Avi on his way home. They don't get around to hurting him much, but Viggo is still far from amused.





	Different Languages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).

Avi was a lot of things, but naive had never been one of them. He’d known that getting involved with the mob would be dangerous. As far as he was concerned, their business wasn’t really any different from the millionaires and hedge fund types his old firm mostly worked for, but of course there was a lot more immediate violence involved. He’d been aware of the possibility of some of that violence touching him, had already gotten more than a few glimpses at it. He found it unpleasant, in a way, but again, he wasn’t naive. Anywhere there was money, there was violence. The mob just hadn’t outsourced it to other countries.

Still, he hadn’t quite been prepared to get dragged out of his car one night as he’d come home, to get punched and kicked and tied to a chair, and he’d been damn lucky that whoever had been after him had been stupid enough to do it at his own home, and stupid enough not to notice the emergency call Avi had sent while disabling the house’s alarm system. Having the cops come save his ass – the sirens unfortunately driving his attackers away before they’d arrived – probably wasn’t mob style, but Avi hadn’t really given a fuck about that just then. He’d been more worried about losing Viggo’s trust than his respect. Avi wasn’t one of them, never would be. He didn’t need to play by their convoluted rules of honour and family; that was one of the reasons Viggo kept him around. But Viggo needed to be damn sure Avi hadn’t said a word about any of the operations he’d been asked about. 

So despite Viggo touching his face with careful fingers the next day, quiet rage in his voice as he’d asked who was behind this, pouring Avi a water glass full of vodka and making him drink it all, he was a little worried when Kirill picked him up a few days later and said Viggo needed him. He was always stone-faced, but somehow he looked even more stone-faced than usual. Avi told himself he had nothing to worry about, but Viggo had a fucking temper. 

Avi walked into Viggo’s suite at the hotel, found him with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a glass in his hand, and in front of him three bloodied men on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, and two of Viggo’s goons watching them, guns drawn. Avi recognised them immediately – the big one, mostly, with an ugly red-black tattoo crawling over his entire neck. His bruised cheek smarted at the memory of that same guy sucker-punching him so hard it was a miracle he hadn’t broken any bones.

“Are these the men who attacked you?” Viggo said by way of greeting. He handed his glass to Avi, and Avi wasn’t entirely sure if he was supposed to drink or just hold it for him. He settled for putting it down on the bar.

“Yeah,” he said, then corrected himself because being imprecise never paid off, “The one on the right, definitely. Can’t see the other two’s faces.”

Viggo barked an order at his goons in Russian and they grabbed both men by the hair, yanked up their heads so Avi could get a better look.

“That’s them, yeah,” he confirmed. His fingers were twitching nervously. He was a lawyer, he didn’t usually have to deal with this fucking shit. The only time he needed to know about the murders and the torture and the beatings was when he made sure nobody went to prison for them. Or at least nobody important. He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, felt sweet relief flow through him at the first drag. “Listen, Viggo, I barely spent five minutes in a room with them before the cops showed up. It wasn’t fun, sure, but they didn’t even get around to asking any interesting questions.”

Viggo gave him a sharp look. He was angry, he’d seemed constantly angry for days, but none of it was apparently directed at Avi. Like it hadn’t even occurred to him that the problem might have been Avi talking – which, Avi wouldn’t have blamed him, because he was shit with pain. He had no doubt that it would only take so much torture to make him sing like a fucking bird.

“An attack on you is an attack on my operations, an attack on me. I do not tolerate such things.” Viggo’s fingertips rubbed over the rings on his hand, as if he was contemplating taking them off. “If my rivals think of you as a weak spot in my organisation, an easy way to harm me, I will … disabuse them of that notion.”

It sounded like a threat – easiest way to get rid of a weak spot was to kill it first, a tactic both Viggo and Avi had employed more than once – but Viggo gave him a smile like a shark that smelt blood, and then turned towards the kneeling men. The first punch came with a sickening crunch that made Avi regret his breakfast. He’d seen Viggo beat up a guy for information – not all the way through, just the beginning before he’d let someone else take over – but this wasn’t that. This wasn’t controlled, methodical, planned. It was pure unadulterated violence, his fist coming down again and again while the only thing keeping that thug upright was Viggo’s goon holding him up. It was fucking disgusting, the kind of thing you usually saw in R-rated movies and thought was over the top, except it was real, a few feet away from Avi, and somehow in all his reasonable expectations for working with the mob, he hadn’t quite expected to witness Viggo Tarasov beat a man to death with his bare hands. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realised he’d just become some FBI agent’s wet dream.

Eventually the guy slumped to the floor, lifeless and silent, and there was nothing but a bloody, gory mess where his face had been.

“Jesus, Viggo, was that necessary? You could have just shot him!” The cigarette had burnt down to the filter in Avi’s hand, and he quickly stubbed it out before lighting another one. Viggo’s reply was in mumbled Russian, and he didn’t look up from his bloodied fist when Avi snapped, “English, please. Fuck!”

“I said it’s called making a point,” Viggo said. He sounded a little out of breath, but oddly calm, as if this was finally clearing things up. “Violence is a language like any other.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not one I speak any more than fucking Russian, so you mind if I sit this conversation out?” 

Viggo didn’t bother with an answer, but he also didn’t give Avi permission to leave, and the main lesson Avi had learnt from his work with the mob was that one did not disobey Viggo. Pretty damn simple rule. So he stayed, and he watched as Viggo turned to the next guy, and the one after that, and somewhere in those seemingly endless minutes, his disgust gave way to something else. A heady, mad kind of thrill, the kind you got while watching boxing from the front row. A strange kind of flattered vanity on top of that – a lot of men threatened Viggo’s business in some way, his organisation, his men, and Avi knew for a fact that he didn’t usually kill them personally. Let alone in such a gruesome, intimate way. Violence was a language, and Avi realised that Viggo wasn’t only speaking to the fool who’d sent his men after Avi. 

So he settled back against the bar, forced himself to smoke his cigarette more calmly as he watched, and poured them both another glass of vodka. And when Viggo finally stopped, strong hands languidly gesturing for his men to take the corpses away before he turned back to Avi and joined him by the bar, Avi pulled Viggo’s cigarettes from his jacket pocket, loosened one of them and held up the package so Viggo could take the filter between his lips, and then he made damn sure to meet his eyes when he lit the cigarette for him. 

The sharp smell of smoke wafted around them both, and neither of them looked away, not while the bodies were being dragged out, not when the door was closed while some poor bastard had to go fetch cleaning supplies. 

“Your hands are a mess,” Avi said finally, reached out and then thought better of it. “Let me help you clean up.”

Viggo smiled around his cigarette, and at some point in the past few months Avi had developed a very inconvenient thing for that dark, knowing smile, and for the way Viggo’s lips looked around the filter, as if thinking about your Russian mob boss sucking dick wasn’t the quickest way to get himself beaten to a bloody pulp. Or not, since Avi wasn’t stupid enough to ever let anyone find out about that particular line of thought.

“Usually you don’t have to clean up my mess quite so literally,” Viggo said, and something about all this primal damn violence had clearly gone to Avi’s head because he thought that Viggo just made the word _mess_ sound fucking filthy.

“Yeah, well, I’m not scrubbing the floor, no matter how much you pay me. C’mon.”

He didn’t know why he was so sure Viggo would follow him – maybe it was the way Viggo was looking at him, or the fact that Viggo generally seemed to enjoy Avi’s company way more than Avi had been prepared for. He’d always thought outsiders didn’t stand a fucking chance among people like that – he hadn’t expected Viggo to be so damn friendly. Maybe Viggo just enjoyed having someone around who didn’t piss his pants every time he frowned.

Viggo’s bathroom was a giant marble monstrosity, but the advantage was that it made Avi feel slightly less like he was crossing some unspoken line. Viggo was still smoking, watching him with that unreadable expression, and quietly going along when Avi turned on the water, took Viggo by the wrist, and then started washing the blood off his right hand. He managed to be efficient about it at first, but then the water started running clear, and Viggo still hadn’t moved, still had his burnt down cigarette between his lips, his hand in Avi’s while Avi’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles, over old scars and new bruises, retraced the half-faded lines of Viggo’s tattoos. He’d never even had a thing for tattoos. Still didn’t, because every other prick he worked with these days had ink and Avi still found most of it fucking ugly. But on Viggo … it was the contrast of those elegant, expensive suits and the old ink peeking out from underneath, like no matter how hard he tried to play the honest businessman, he could never hide just how dangerous he was underneath. It was hot in that same stupid, primal way as him beating those poor fucks to death had been.

Finally Viggo’s fingers twitched, and he pulled his hand away, but only to put the other one under the still running water instead. There was less blood on his left hand, but Avi still took just as much time washing it – only interrupted himself to take the forgotten cigarette butt from Viggo’s lips and put it down. He was watching Viggo’s mouth again, his fingers brushing over the callouses and scars and ink on Viggo’s hand like he couldn’t tear himself away. He realised in that moment that if Viggo were to bend him right over the next flat surface, he wouldn’t even try to do the sensible thing and object. It’d probably get him killed – one thing to let a man live after he’d seen you kill someone, another to let a man live if he had _that_ kind of dirt on you – and he’d still feel like it’d be fucking worth it.

“You know, as your lawyer, I have to remind you that you really shouldn’t do this kind of shit yourself, or even be present for it,” Avi said. He took one of the soft, fuzzy hand towels and started drying Viggo’s hands, more carefully than he probably needed to be about it. “Don’t you have enough people to do your dirty work for you?”

“I do,” Viggo said. He spread his fingers, then clenched his hand into a fist. Avi’s mind helpfully reminded him of the crunching sound of that first punch, bones breaking and flesh tearing under the same fist Viggo was raising now. “But some messages have to be said in person. Don’t you agree?”

And then Viggo’s knuckles brushed over Avi’s cheek, ghosting over the already half-faded bruise on his cheekbone, then down until they almost touched the corner of his mouth. Viggo’s hands were rough, even rougher than they’d felt under Avi’s fingers, and so strong that it made his throat tight in something that was far away from fear. 

“Yeah, but the next time you want to tell me I’m doing a good job, just pay me a bonus.” It was cheeky even for what he usually got away with, but Viggo just laughed, like people usually asked him even jokingly for more money.

“Yes, I know, your language is laws and money,” Viggo said. He was still … caressing Avi’s cheek, no other word for it. Knuckles brushing over it lightly, and then he cupped Avi’s chin. “It’s not one I’m fond of. Money should be a tool, nothing more. To be used for business, not to make a point.”

“Right,” Avi said, for once not knowing what the fuck else he was supposed to say here, if this was some kind of weird test, some stupid ritual or game he didn’t understand. But Viggo didn’t really make a habit of playing with him like that. He fucked with other people plenty, but he was always more straightforward with Avi. And now he pressed his thumb against the soft skin just below Avi’s bottom lip, rubbed lightly. Fuck.

“You should stay here for a few days, until all this has … blown over,” Viggo said after a few tense moments, and he still didn’t move his damn hand away. After a far too pointed pause to be accidental, he added, “At the hotel, I mean. To keep you safe.”

“If you think that’s necessary.” Avi licked his lips nervously, flinched when his tongue almost brushed against Viggo’s thumb. Viggo still didn’t move away. “I’m pretty sure you’ve made your point, though.”

“Yes, but some people need several lessons until they learn. So in the meantime, you stay here.”

It wasn’t a question, and Viggo clearly didn’t expect any answer other than obedience. Viggo had always liked having him around, even when he didn’t specifically _need_ Avi’s services. Still, this was a little eccentric even for him.

Viggo’s knuckles were bruised and red from the beating he’d delivered early, and despite the smell of soap and antiseptic Avi felt like the sweet smell of blood still clung to them. Viggo didn’t have to kill those guys himself, not for fucking with his lawyer. Didn’t have to kill them so brutally, and he sure as hell didn’t have to make Avi watch every damn second of it. He didn't have to touch Avi’s face now with those same hands, like that was a thing they did. A thing that meant something.

Avi desperately needed another cigarette. Because he was starting to learn this particular language of Viggo’s a lot faster than he’d ever learn Russian.


End file.
